We take our playlists very seriously.

Hidden Gems is curated by AntiSocial’s own office DJ, flow-aficionado Aayush Chopra. Chopra belongs to the Social Media Team, a section of the office known for knowing what’s good.

Underground hip hop and rap challenges industry assumptions and disregards standards. These artists aren’t pandering to their audience — they’re not about fitting into mainstream music which is exactly what makes their stuff so good.

This list boasts a few recognizable names like A$AP, So Loki and Pusha T, but make sure you pay close attention to the artists, like Boslen and Jack Harlow, who aren’t household names — yet.

Hidden Gems presents off-the-beaten-path tracks to you on a Spotify silver platter. It’s full of artists turning heat into fire; most of them will be names new to the average hip hop fan. If you’re looking for head bumping hip hop with alternative vibes, you’re in the right place.

Instagram’s algorithm doesn’t have to be a mystery. And once you understand it, you can use it to your advantage.

Instagram’s algorithm is all about its users. They want people to spend time on the app so they prioritize accounts that keep people engaged. So, the one thing to remember: the more your content is engaged with, the more Instagram will like you. Let’s break that down a bit.

Instagram relies on users’ past actions to dictate their feed.

Even if someone follows exactly the same accounts as someone else, their feeds will be different. Instagram places importance on how users interact with content, so the accounts you engage with more often will be given priority on your feed. This results in more curated exposure for your brand, and Instagram benefiting with increased user-time on the app.

They determine priority based on three main factors.

The three main factors Instagram uses to decide priority:

Interest

Instagram predicts whether or not you’ll engage with a post based on your past behaviour. Liked a photo of a juicy cheeseburger in the past? Congratulations, your feed is dominated by food posts.

This is good news for brands and businesses on IG. The audience your posts are showing up in front of are likely targeted because they have a pre-existing interest in your brand. Use this by staying consistent with your brand values, voice, and content type. We cannot stress this enough: Give the people what they want.

Timeliness

Instagram gives priority to more recent posts. This factor is important to remember, you want to keep posting to stay relevant. Just like Google likes an active site, Instagram likes an active user.

Relationship

Instagram gives higher priority to your besties, friends, and fam. They predict your relationship based on how much you’ve interacted in the past. This factor proves the importance of community management for a brand’s Insta. You need to interact with your followers, repost their UGC, and make them feel as though they know your brand personally.

Algorithm myths, rumours, and conspiracy theories debunked.

The team at Instagram spoke up on Twitter, attempting to put user minds at ease regarding all of the fake news circulating behind their algorithm.

Chronological Order.

One thing is for certain, reverse chronological order (or better known as simply chronological order) will not be returning to Instagram. Despite how much and how often people ask for it, Instagram says they know better.

The Shadowban.

Instagram says it doesn’t hide users posts. The Shadowban is not a real thing. Those who are paranoid that perhaps Instagram did hide some of their posts perhaps need to take a look at what and how they’re posting. After a drop in engagement, ask yourself (and answer honestly) am I spamming my followers with poor quality content? Do I need a social media management team to help me? (We can help you).

We’ve noticed an uptick in posts about Instagram limiting the reach of your photos to 7% of your followers, and would love to clear this up.

We have not made any recent changes to feed ranking, and we never hide posts from people you’re following – if you keep scrolling, you will see them all. Again, your feed is personalized to you and evolves over time based on how you use Instagram.✌️

The algorithm doesn’t care about Stories.

Business vs Personal.

IG doesn’t care if your account is for business or personal reasons. They also don’t give extra feed presence to verified accounts. Everyone gets the same opportunity on a feed. Again, the things that matter are an increase in engagement; a perfectly curated business account is probably going to be shown more to their followers than a personal, disorganized one.

May Long Weekend is upon us, but are you prepared to capture it properly?

Victoria Day often marks the first nice long weekend in Canada. People are starting to venture outdoors for camping, hiking, kayaking and other nice-weather activities. And, you don’t want to be that guy who takes the worst photos and videos. Here are a few outdoor-friendly tips for capturing your epic long weekend on your phone.

Action Shots

Whatever you do with your long weekend, you and your friends will probably be moving around a lot. Unless of course, you’re spending it at home, chillin’ alone — respect. But, if you do decide to go cliff jumping, wakeboarding, skateboarding, or whatever it is you’re into, you can take some great action shots of your friends with your camera’s burst mode.

With an iPhone, you simply hold down the shutter button when taking your photo. Your camera will take a burst of photos, giving you options to sort through to find the best shot. Just make sure you have enough storage on your phone for 80 photos.

Night Photography

Chances are, you’ll be out after the sun goes down. Don’t let your nighttime photos be grainy or blurred.

Blurry photos:

When you’re shooting in low light, your camera uses a slower shutter speed because the longer the shutter is open, the more light gets captured in your photo. But, this also means that if you or your subject moves while your shutter is open, your photos will appear blurry. If you don’t have a tripod handy, you can use something solid around you to balance yourself. Lean against a wall or a tree and tuck your elbows into your body to stabilize yourself.

Grainy photos:

In darker scenes, your camera attempts to get as much detail as possible. So, it will try to bring out detail in the shadows by making the image brighter. This usually results in grainy shadows and an overly-bright subject. You can fix this by turning down the exposure before you take a photo, either manually or by focusing on the darker parts of the scene.

Sunny Day Photography

Bright direct sunlight isn’t typically the best lighting for photography. You’re at risk of over-exposure or casting harsh shadows. But, you can still achieve some incredible shots by keeping some things in mind.

Don’t shoot into the sun. Shoot with the sun behind you. It’s usually the first thing they teach you in photography class, for good reason. It illuminates your subject from the front and prevents bright sunny rays from ruining your photo.

As you have already seen, if you shoot with the sun behind you, the subject in your photo will be evenly lit from the front. This is desirable in many situations, but it often doesn’t make for a very interesting photo.

Once you see what the position of the sun does for your subject, you can experiment with changing it. When your light source is coming from the side, it can cast dramatic shadows, for example.

Colourful Landscapes

You know how you can see a breathtaking landscape but your photos of it don’t do it justice? You can bring your photography a little closer to capturing that ethereal beauty by switching on your HDR mode.

HDR mode will help the colours pop in your landscape shots, capturing both bright and dark areas.

You can also make your landscape shots more compelling by including foreground interest. By placing something in the foreground of your landscape photos, you give your viewer a focal point.

Respect the Golden Hour

The Golden Hour — a magical time of the day occurring about an hour after sunrise and before sunset provides a soft, warm light, perfect for photography. The sun has to penetrate the atmosphere from a greater distance, making the light less intense. The ‘blue light’ is scattered, giving the red hues of sunlight prominence, resulting in a ‘golden hue’.

Note: The opposite period in twilight, called the Blue Hour, happening before sunrise and after sunset, offers indirect sunlight with a predominantly blue shade. This light will be lower and may require a slower shutter speed.

Some things just don’t land. And, in marketing, we now have the internet to show us what not to do for our campaigns.

IHOP’s audience isn’t pleased with the Pancake House’s Mother’s Day tweet. Is it a negative-attention campaign or just a straight up fail? Here’s what we can learn from their mistakes.

IHOP’s bizarre marketing tactics anger their audience

Recently, IHOP posted a tweet for Mother’s Day that their audience truly hated. And always remember, the internet has no chill. People let IHOP know loudly that they were not on board with this direction of marketing. The tweet did, however, see engagement far above their average.

The copy reads: “If you have pancakes in your tum tum, does that make you a pancake mum mum? Happy Mother’s Day to ALL the moms out there!”

Twitter reacted with cringe, replying with horrified sentiments about how fully IHOP missed the mark. And, this isn’t the first time IHOP misread their target audience. During their “IHOb” campaign, IHOP claimed to have changed their name to IHOb, the International House of Burgers. It was not well received. But, IHOP later came to say that the name change was a marketing stunt created to direct people’s attention to their burger menu options. Hmm. They succeeded in gaining attention, but at what cost? Most people were honestly just confused by the end of it.

This leaves one to wonder — is the ‘Pancakes in a Uterus’ tweet another stab at making negative attention work? Or was it just a social media fail? Either way, we can learn some things from IHOP — stay true to your brand voice, don’t confuse your audience, and negative attention is usually not what you want.

If you have pancakes in your tum tum, does that make you a pancake mum mum? Happy Mother’s Day to ALL the moms out there! pic.twitter.com/wauH9sYvDb

The Social Media Department: A corner of the AntiSocial Headquarters known for pettin’ dogs and gettin’ things done.

The AntiSocial Social Media Department is made up of rappers, writers, poets, dancers, bloggers, business owners, stay-at-home astronauts (looking at you, Oli), mixologists, and so much more. They’re the type of people who check in with you when you’ve had a bad week and will give you their genuine opinion about everything from creative briefs to your new bangs.

They work hard, they love harder, and they know how many hashtags is too many hashtags.

And, now that we’re officially looking to expand our social team, we decided to sit down with their department to see exactly what it’s like when your agency job is running social for big brands.

What it’s like:

On any given day you can find members of the social team shopping for props, planning out brand aesthetics, styling food, producing videos, copywriting, or brainstorming concepts.

While interviewing for this article, one thing kept coming up again and again: At AntiSocial, we have the opportunity to take an idea, create a concept from it, and see the project through to the final stages. We work for a rare company that offers it’s team members a huge amount of creative freedom and our clients trust us to create great campaigns that elevate their brand. Most of the time, the ideas we come up with are approved immediately. If we can dream it, we can usually produce it. There’s something incredible about watching your idea unfold from start to finish.

“The best thing about working at AntiSocial? It’s the team, number one. And number two? We almost always get the green light right away for our ideas.” – Andrew Tatton

Additionally, AntiSocial offers all things digital media in-house. So, not only is the social team creating a concept for a brand, but their working alongside the media team to see it come full-circle. They attend photo shoots and are producers on promo videos they’ve dreamed up. They’re a part of the editing process, voice-over creation, and background music choice. They’re involved in the metrics, too — working with our Paid Advertising department to see how effective strategies are, and reporting that back to clients.

Words from the team:

I sat down with the social team to see exactly what they thought about working together and for AntiSocial. The responses were overwhelmingly positive.

What do you guys like about your job?

Melissa Tolentino: “We work with a group of people who are very creative and alike in a lot of ways and accepting of each other. Everyone is a team player, and everyone works really hard. We’re a diverse group.”

Our newest hire, Oli Dickerson, who landed at AntiSocial after he moved from London adds: “It’s a real community feel here. That’s one of the benefits of small agencies. It’s almost like working with mates instead of bosses — I don’t feel bad about going up and chatting at work. It’s laid back but everyone still works hard.”

All of us in the room felt Oli’s statement. Our department heads are easy-to-talk-to coworkers and the co-founders of AntiSocial work alongside us, supporting us in our creative endeavours. Because we’re a smaller agency a feeling of familiarity exists between all corporate levels but there’s an unspoken understanding that we’re here because we work hard and we’re good at what we do.

Tee Krispil: “Autonomy — there’s a trust that stuff will get done, there’s no micromanaging.”

And, on that note, Ekke Kanda adds: “Flexible schedules. You can come and go when you want.”

A flex schedule works well within our company. Like Tee mentioned, we have autonomy over our work production and because of that, we can work when we’re most productive. We’re welcome to make work happen around our lives, instead of the other way around. The flex schedules and autonomy creates an environment that supports a healthy work-life balance.

On overcoming challenges:

We’d be lying if we didn’t say there are challenges with the work we do. But, you can’t succeed without failing.

Nicole Wei: “Being involved in everything inherently exposes us to all the ways a project can go wrong. But, communication in our department and our team is huge and valued.”

We work through problems together, if someone’s struggling with a project they know they can rely on everyone else in our agency to help. The social team is committed to self-care and prioritizing your mental health.

Aisha Fawkes: “We support each other in our other endeavours and do check-ins and see how people are feeling.”

And, we’re looking for a new social team member!

Words of wisdom for people thinking about applying:

Melissa Tolentino: “We work with cool and well-known brands and come up with great campaigns. Our clients have a diverse range of industries so after working here for a couple of years you’ll have all the experience in the world. You’ll be prepared for any industry.”

Nicole Wie: “We’re the only department that’s involved in everything. I love collaborating with different departments, it’s rare that you’re sitting there working doing your own work.”

Mitra Barber: “This job is perfect if you are willing to learn, multitask like crazy, and put yourself out there. Be ready to work. If you are here to be a sponge and absorb and work with really cool people and clients, then this is the place for you.”

Melissa Tolentino standing in as a 'rib eating model' for photographer Warren Fenton, who needed to focus his camera.

You too could be a stand-in model for a Save-On-Foods BBQ shoot.

For most of our clients, social media is the face of their company. It’s where they talk to their audience, promote their services, and engage with their community. The end result is an amalgamation of brand tonality, cohesive aesthetics, and happy followers. What we don’t see is the blood, sweat, and tears the social department pours into each account. To say they work hard is an understatement. But, the team at AntiSocial always has each other’s backs. They check in with each other, uphold a healthy work-life balance, and, I can honestly say from experience, are the most fun people to work with.

The ‘Traffic Jam Whopper’ service started in Mexico City but will soon branch out to L.A., Shanghai and Sao Paulo.

The ‘Traffic Jam Whopper’ delivers Burger King Whoppers to people stuck in Mexico City’s notorious traffic gridlocks. According to BK’s case study, the publicity stunt increased daily delivery orders in Mexico by a whopping 63% (pun intended) and the daily download rate of the BK app by 44%.

By using real-time traffic data, the app determines which area is the most congested, targets that through Waze banner ads and digital billboards, alerting drivers when the delivery service is available to them.

The delivery range is within a three-kilometer radius to a brick and mortar Burger King, where one lucky employee will grab the burgs, jump on a motorcycle, and whip through the traffic jam to the hungry drivers. Meanwhile, the billboards update in real-time, letting drivers know when their food is approaching. Genius.

Facebook’s F8 developer conference came with some startling new changes.

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s CEO, announced that Facebook’s F8 theme is “The future is private” which, following a year coloured with privacy controversy, isn’t exactly a surprise.

Facebook also announced updates to Instagram (including the Canadian test-run of removing likes), a redesign of both Facebook Messenger and your News Feed, and a cringe-worthy dating service called “Secret Crush”.

Instagram likes: Gone, but not forgotten.

If you’re Canadian, you might have noticed the like-counts on your feed disappearing. While it may be a life-crushing validation-void for some, for others this could provide a nice mental break from the pressure of social media. But, not to worry, for those who absolutely need to know where their competition is at, you can click on the ‘Liked by’ section and count em’ up manually.

For others in the business of social media, this could change the metrics of how you rate the success of a post. Now, you may have to pivot to an engagement-centred value system. Which, if we’re being honest, we find more telling anyway.

Facebook’s ‘Secret Crush’ — Tinder for kids?

Facebook’s new dating app ‘Secret Crush’ feels like school gossip on ‘who likes who’. You can add up to 5 people from your social network into your ‘Secret Crush’ category, Facebook will then notify those people that someone likes them, prompting them to try and ‘guess who’ by adding people into their own crush category. Once you and another person both add each other, Facebook matches you together, revealing your names.

“Now, kiss!” Facebook says as it pushes your profile pictures together like a Barbie and Ken doll romance.

The premise is, however, bound to increase engagement. Who doesn’t want to know who has a crush on them? It’s, at the very least, flattering. And, at the very worst, creepy. Now, for a platform that has gone through the wringer with privacy lawsuits, people may not think it’s a good idea to let Facebook know even more about their personal lives.

Facebook Messenger gets up close and personal.

Facebook Messenger is getting a refresh. You’ll be able to set a status and share photos amongst close friends. The app itself will be redesigned to take up 20% less space on iOS and desktop apps for Mac and PC users should be launching later this year.

Instagram updates its camera interface, appealing to influencers, creators, and online business owners.

Instagram’s camera redesign features ‘Create Mode’. The new mode lets users build a post without needing to upload a photo or video. The option of dedicated shopping tags will also become available. These tags let influencer, artist, or other creators tag a product in the photo giving viewers the option to buy that item without ever having to leave Instagram.

For those not savvy in the world of VR, Oculus Rift and Rift S are Virtual Reality headsets created by Oculus VR, a division of Facebook. The two new headsets are set to ship at the end of May, they both cost about $400 US and, apparently, are pretty user-friendly.

FB5 will redesign your News Feed, highlighting groups and events.

Zuckerberg’s calling it “FB5”. The idea is to downplay the News Feed and highlight groups you’ve joined and events you might attend. There will be a prominent groups tab with a personalized feed from groups you’ve joined, instead of a relentless volley of baby photos from those high school folks you always forget to unfriend.

Marketing your restaurant can help you fill those dreaded slow days.

There’s a reason why no one wants to work Mondays and Tuesdays in hospitality.

Instagram Story Ads

There are 500 million people using Instagram Stories every day, with brands and businesses owning a third of the most viewed stories. Instagram Story Ads were introduced in January this year and open to the public this March. They let you insert your Story Ad in between users stories. The ad is formatted like a Story, which keeps user flow uninterrupted (read: makes the Ad Story seem like a friends Story).

When you’re using Instagram Story Ads to promote your slow-day deals, don’t just stop at photos. With videos typically holding viewer attention 5x longer than still images, you’ll want to consider filming a promo-piece for your IG Story Ad content. Also, photo ads only last 10 seconds while video ads last 15. But, remember, users can always tap to skip past your ad so if you do film a promo piece, make the first few seconds count.

Flash Sale Advertised Only on Your Instagram Story

You’re probably already offering some kind of deal on your slow days — most people are far more likely to come into your restaurant on a Monday if you have half-off margaritas. But, you can step up both your slow-day customers and your social media following by offering a special, flash sale to those who view your story.

For example, you can make an Instagram Story with a redeemable code in it, request followers to repost something on your feed, tag you in their story, or simply check in at your geotag to redeem a ‘prize’. The prize could be anything from a free appetizer to a branded t-shirt or gift card — the budget doesn’t have to be huge.

The beauty of doing this on your Instagram Story (besides the 500 million daily users) is that it will expire in 24 hours and you can add a countdown sticker for added hype.

Geotags

Geotags are good for both slow and busy days but it’s important enough to mention here.

Geotags are exact locations that can be tagged on Instagram. You’ll want to make one for your restaurant if you don’t already have one — people use them to search on IG, check in on Facebook, and tag themselves in. It’s almost like free advertising for your spot. To make a custom geotag, you’ll need to follow these simple steps through your Facebook account.

Make sure you’re adding geotags to your own posts and searching users who also tag their content at your geotag.

Influencers

Are you working with influencers? Influencer marketing can be incredibly effective, especially if you’re collaborating with them to get your Mondays booked. You can invite them in on your slow days to promote your specials or even just your space. Have them specifically say why they love being there on a Monday, anything from the fact that there’s no line or need for a reservation to the drink specials you’re featuring.

We take our playlists very seriously.

MTV Raps is curated by AntiSocial’s own office DJ, timed tempo tycoon Alex Chan. Alex is one of our wise leaders, a sect of the office known for signin’ cheques and pettin’ dogs.

MTV Raps is a tribute to an era when you invested in Speaker Pods and an Alpine Subwoofer that killed your trunk space. You didn’t care — it was worth the price to bump Geto Boys and Notorious BIG.

These tracks will transport you back into the good ol’ days when MTV ruled the world — or at the very least, decided what we were going to listen to. MTV Raps is the pop-inspired little brother to our Get Schooled – Hip Hop 101 playlist. You can expect easy listening from the late 80s, 90s, and early 00s and a combination of major hip hop and R&B artists.

Props to whoever can recognize the tracks tapping into popular media. Hint: Office Space, Dangerous Minds, and most recently, Us.

Tapped out on campaign ideas? Get inspired by some of our favourite funny Mother’s Day videos for 2019 below.

Friendly reminder: May 12th is Mother’s Day — so call your mom, your dad-who-is-also-a-mom, the mother of your fur-baby, and your grandma. Whoever showers you in unconditional love and nurturing deserves a shout out today. And then, go check out these hilarious Mother’s Day campaigns for 2019.

Kentucky Fried Chicken

Is fried chicken sexy? KFC and Wieden & Kennedy Portland seem to think so. They’ve taken the ‘sex sells’ idea and applied to their Mother’s Day, Chickendale campaign. Although a lot of people will cringe at the idea of their mom’s staring at sweaty, grinding Chippendale (or, in this case, Chickendale) dancers, the humour is there.

Portal, by Facebook

Facebook’s newest invention, Portal, is a video-chat smart-camera which can auto-zoom and follow you when you’re chatting and moving. Their Mother’s Day video doesn’t address any of Portal’s features out loud but rather shows them operating easily as Neil Patrick Harris chats with six moms.

The video is stacked with celebrity moms, including the moms of Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, Serena and Venus Williams, Snoop Dogg, Odell Beckham Jr, and Jonah Hill. It’s light and humorous, showing moms talkin’ smack, making fun of NPH, and just generally being moms while subtly highlighting Portal’s new gadgetry.

Teleflora

Teleflora, a floral wire service company which brokers orders to local florists for delivery, is probably going to busy on Mother’s Day with or without their new Love Like a Mother campaign. The company announced its Mother’s Day bouquet collection alongside the campaign, which shows people acting motherly towards strangers. The result is awkwardly hilarious and oddly familiar, at the same time.